Editors

This chapter is referenced in the LFS
book for those wishing to use other editors on their LFS system. We also have the opportunity to show how
some LFS installed programs benefit from
being recompiled after GUI libraries
have been installed.

Vim-6.2

Introduction to Vim

The Vim package, which is an
abbreviation for VI IMproved, contains a vi clone with extra features as compared to
the original vi.

The default LFS instructions install
vim as a part of the base
system. If you would prefer to link vim against X, you should recompile vim to enable
GUI mode. There is no need for
special instructions since X
support is automatically detected.

Vim dependencies

Recommended

Optional

Installation of Vim

Note

If you recompile vim to link against X, and your X libs are not on the root
partition, you will no longer have an editor for use in
emergencies. You may choose to install an additional editor,
not link vim against X, or move the current vim executable to the /bin directory under a different name such as
vi.

Command explanations

--with-features=huge: This
switch enables all the additional features available in
Vim.

--enable-gui=no: If you prefer
not to link vim against X, use this switch.

Contents

The Vim package contains
eview, evim, ex, gview, gvim, gvimdiff, rgview, rgvim, rview, rvim, view, vim, vimdiff, vimtutor and xxd. Except for vimtutor and xxd, all the other commands are symlinks to
vim and start vim with different options. vimtutor is a tool to learn the various
vim commands and
xxd is a command used to
create hex dumps.